Accepting the Perfectly Imperfect

December 16, 2016

Welcome to Daniel honesty hour, where I am going to be straight up with you guys about my life. My sister keeps telling me that if I keep trying to push myself in the manner I’ve been doing, I will burn out, and… after enduring a very low grade, consistent headache for the last couple days, I’m beginning to believe her.

This past year I set some business goals for myself that I wasn’t personally ready to accomplish. As I’ll talk about in a little bit, I don’t believe that someone can run a successful business without first establishing a pattern of healthy living. You may be able to do it for a little while, but over time cracks will show. Therefore, I can no longer ignore the fact that, just being real, I do not exercise AT ALL. Like, today I did ten pushups and I honestly was just so proud of myself for doing ANYTHING. I stay up SUPER late working on images, which causes me to sleep in, which in turn takes away any morning time that I could devote to working out. I can no longer ignore that I REALLY need to finish my EMT classes so that I can start gaining experience hours for Physician Assistant school. If I want to get accepted into a PA program by next summer, that’s got to get done! I don’t eat well, and I haven’t called my grandparents in probably an entire month. Further, I can no longer allow myself to look in the mirror and accept that I don’t really enjoy how I feel. Yeah! I said it! Sometimes I straight up don’t like me! There are days when I just want to sit on my bed with a gallon of eggnog and… well… not do anything actually… Thankfully I never let myself do it, but it’s awfully tempting. I don’t say these things though to initiate a Daniel themed pity party! On the contrary, I admit this as a way of demonstrating where I am NOW. Because, in order for you to climb out of the mud, you must first admit to yourself that you are NOT standing on a mountaintop.

As such, I am initiating “Operation Reclaim Joy.” After spending some time alone reevaluating the direction of DJaxStudios, success to me is now being redefined.

To me, success equals…
1. Learning how to take care of my emotional, spiritual, social, and financial needs in a responsible manner that glorifies God and places me in a position to help others.
2. Focusing my efforts on people by finding ways to brighten the lives of those whom I have a direct impact.
3. Growing in boldness, spirit, courage, and drive. I will not back down from my dreams, no matter how large they may appear.
4. Accepting imperfection as a stepping stone rather than an obstacle. With everything I do I will become better and learn. I will no longer see my failures as the defining feature of where I am going. Instead, I will look at my shortcomings as an example of who I USED to be as I strive to be a better me.

If I don’t start this process by taking care of me, however, then I’ll have nothing to give. I am going to focus the beginning of this next year on getting my life in order! I want love and health and I want to be able to spend my energy towards helping others. I want to look back on these years of my life and remember what it was like to FIGHT to be a healthier person more than I fought to build a business that slowly drained the last of my energy. One day I want to teach my kids how to create healthy boundaries in their own lives and be able to use my life as a model! With responsible spending, and a proper strategy, anyone can start a business. However, it takes healthy living, determination, and a great deal of personal integrity to really change lives for the better.

As I work through this journey I’ll keep you guys updated, as I hope you guys can see my struggle and be motivated to do the same. We CAN grow. We can change. It’s something I’ve said so many times… and it’s very much time I started listening to my own words. So, I will FINALLY be admitting that I simply do not have time to blog five days a week… I just can’t do it. It takes FAR more time than I have at this moment. So, I’m going to start blogging just two days a week. Every Monday and Wednesday. SOMETIMES, if I just have way too much material I might blog on a Thursday as well, but we’ll just have to see.

So that’s it! I’m at an interesting place as I enter into 2016. My first goal: Learn how to take care of my emotional, spiritual, social, and financial needs in a responsible manner that glorifies God and places me in a position to help others. That is what is most important, and that is what I will focus on. After that, and only AFTER that, I will start to relook at how my business is serving its customers in the best ways possible to transform lives for the better.